Patt Morrison

In 1970 Barbra Streisand published a story in Life magazine titled “Who Am I Anyway?” It was the very question two leading photojournalists of the day—Steve Schapiro and Lawrence Schiller—were also asking as they photographed her during her first five years in Hollywood, working to get beneath the veneer and capture “the real Barbra.” Brimming with photographs, stories, and behind-the-scenes shots from Schapiro and Schiller, and previously available as a limited edition, this is a must-have collection for any Streisand fan. All the best movies of Streisand’s first Hollywood decade are here: Funny Girl, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, The Way We Were, The Owl and the Pussycat, Up the Sandbox, Funny Lady, and A Star Is Born. So too are her loves, directors, confidants, and costars: Elliott Gould, William Wyler, Sydney Pollack, Vincente Minnelli, Cis Corman, Omar Sharif, Kris Kristofferson, and, of course, Robert Redford. Through it all a picture emerges not of a singer who could act, but of an actress who could sing, write, direct, dance, and do just about anything she put her mind to.

The bestselling book about the Los Angeles River, originally published in 2001, is updated with an Afterword that includes the Los Angeles County 2021 Master Plan to improve the quality of life and ecosystem health in the region--all centered at the original source, the Los Angeles River.RIO-LA: Tales from the Los Angeles River 20th Anniversary Edition traces the history and lore of the Los Angeles River. When the book was first published in 2001, few people even regarded the river, but because of Morrison's devotion to the topic, LA River has been rediscovered. The river has become the center of the county's 2021 MasterPlan to reestablish it as the heart of the city, its lifeline to all things positive: an antidote to homelessness; a source of increased affordable housing; new jobs, good health; serenity. Morrison traces this rediscovery in her extensive new Afterword, following pages of river history, dating back to before the founding of the pueblo called Los Angeles. Together Morrison and Lamonica explore the river and the culture that evolves around this virtual oasis in a land of super highways and celluloid dreams.

Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles explores how social, economic, political, and cultural demands created the web of freeways whose very form—futuristic, majestic, and progressive—perfectly exemplifies the City of Angels. From the Arroyo Seco Parkway, which began construction during the Great Depression, to the Century Freeway, completed in 1993, author Paul Haddad provides an entertaining and thought-provoking history of the 527 miles of roadways that comprise the Los Angeles freeway system. Each of Los Angeles’s twelve freeways receives its own chapter, and these are supplemented by “Off-Ramps”—sidebars that dish out pithy factoids about Botts’ Dots, SigAlerts, and all matter of freeway lexicon, such as why Southern Californians are the only people in the country who place the word “the” in front of their interstates, as in “the 5,” or “the 101.” Freewaytopia also explores those routes that never saw the light of day. Imagine superhighways burrowing through Laurel Canyon, tunneling under the Hollywood Sign, or spanning the waters of Santa Monica Bay. With a few more legislative strokes of the pen, you wouldn’t have to imagine them—they’d already exist. Haddad notably gives voice to those individuals whose lives were inextricably connected—for better or worse—to the city’s freeways: The hundreds of thousands of mostly minority and low-income residents who protested against their displacement as a result of eminent domain. Women engineers who excelled in a man’s field. Elected officials who helped further freeways . . . or stop them dead in their tracks. He pays tribute to the corps of civic and state highway employees whose collective vision, expertise, and dedication created not just the most famous freeway network in the world, but feats of engineering that, at their best, achieve architectural poetry. And let’s not forget the beauty queens—no freeway in Los Angeles ever opened without their royal presence. Freewaytopia is part colorful lore, part civic and historical critique, and part homage to the most famous freeways in the world.